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Saturday, 11 October 2014

My first batrep with the new DE codex

Hi all, so I got my first game in with the new codex last night, testing out some units i didn't use in the previous version and some interesting looking combos i've been thinking about.

I played against a Dark Angels force, which was also picked to test a few ideas and so wasn't 'competitive' in that sense of the word.

The game went well, and I managed to table my opponent on Turn 6. Here's how things went though from turn to turn.

First off, we played purge the alien (previously my worst nightmare with the Dark Eldar) and hammer and anvil deployment. I won the roll to gain night fighting on turn 1, and deployed first with first turn. My list consisted of the following:

Archon with a court (2 medusae, 4 sslyth) in a raider with night shields and splinter racks. WWP and helm of spite.

Succubus with Archite Glaive, WWP and Armour of Misery. Accompanied by 4 grotesques in a raider with chain snares and disintegrator cannon.

10 Mandrakes

2 Warrior gunboats with night shields and splinter racks

5 scourges with 4 haywire blasters

2 Talos with ichor injectors and haywire blasters

1 Cronos with both upgrades

voidraven with the split missile option.

I faced off against:

Belial and two units of 5 terminators, with a mix of weapons

librarian with a power field and command squad with apothecary and standard of devastation

2 tactical squads with plasma cannons

devastator squad with 4 missile launchers

2 dreadnoughts with lascannons and missile launchers

techmarine with power field.

4 bikes with plasma guns

Turn 1

Cronos fired the spirit vortex and the bikes, but failed to wound, the Mandrakes shot the bikes and killed 2, but they passed their morale test.
In the Dark Angel turn Belial arrived with both units of terminators, and the heavy flamer bearer killed 9 of the mandrakes. This did put Belial well out of the way though, on my left flank. The second unit arrived right in front of the Talosi and the Cronos. The two dreadnoughts opened up on the Talos, two lascannons and two krak missiles causing a pair of wounds on one Talos (I rolled pants for my FNP)
The rest of his army (that was in range) fired on the last mandrake. Considering we're talking upwards of 40 bolter shots, he only failed about three saves, so without the flamer I'd have been really confident of keeping the unit alive.
His 4 launcher dev unit also fired krak missiles at the talos/cronos unit, but i passed 2 cover and 2 FNP saves to avoid taking any wounds (yep, that's four missiles, four hits and four wounds, his dice were rolling pretty hot at this point)

The medusae in the court killed 3 marines, though most were saved by the librarian in the command squad, who was wearing 2+ armour (managed to get one wound through on him though, and my opponent decided to look out sir the rest rather than risk him dying). The 4 sslyth in the unit also shot at the unit, only missing once thanks to the splinter racks, but only wounded twice (yup, my dice were not rolling hot yet).
The void raven arrived and aimed its bomb at Belial's squad. Sadly i managed to roll a maximum for its scatter and because they were in deep strike formation the template missed.
The warrior squad arrived close enough to fire at the techmarine protecting the dreadnoughts with its power field, and managed to get enough wounds through to take him down. The voidraven used the opportunity to aim both its void lances at the dreadnoughts and sent one crashing to the floor. The Cronos charged the two bikes, killing one, and the talos wiped the five terminators (including a pair with storm shields) before they had a chance to strike back.

In return, the librarian manifested prescience on the devastator squad, but rolled a double four on his attempt, meaning that thanks to the helm of spite worn by my archon, he'd suffered a perils of the warp attack. My opponent managed to roll a two for the result, killing himself. At this point, he decided that my archon's raider with the court were priority number one on his kill list. The seven man tactical squad fired their four shots each, managing a grand total of 1 hull point after jink saves. the devastator squad managed two penetrating hits, that were both saved, and another 36 bolter shots and 1 plasma cannon blast from the second tactical squad failed to do any damage. The command squad then charged the raider, losing the standard bearer to overwatch and the krak grenades in combat managed just another glancing hit.
Belial charged the cronos, getting a single wound through its saves, though the cronos missed with its return attacks. The thunder hammer terminators accompanying Belial also caused a single wound.

Turn 3

The remains of my reserves arrived this turn power from pain ramped up to give everyone Feel no Pain 5+.

The medusae of the archon's court wiped out the remaining command squad members, and 5 of the nearby tactical squad. the voidraven fired at the first tactical squad (already down to 7 men) with all four missiles, killing two with the shatterfields and another three with a single implosion missile (the first missed).
My second warrior squad wiped out the remaining 5-man tactical squad thanks to short range twin linked splinter rifle fire, the disintegrator raider killed one of the now 2-man tactical squad, the final member surviving thanks to going to ground. Belial killed the Cronos in my assault phase, and the Talos charged in killing one terminator in return (couldn't believe it, i had ten attacks, and missed with 8 of them).

In the Dark Angel turn Belial turned his attention to the two Talos, finishing them both off (damn that fleshbane AP3!)

Turn 4

The succubus and grotesques charged the devastator squad, the succubus killed everyone before the grotesques got a chance to show what they could do.

Not much else happened, my opponent had Belial and a few terminators, and a single dreadnought left. In the remaining turns we saw just exactly what the new power from pain does for the Dark Eldar. I managed to to kill all of Belial's bodyguards and took him down to a single wound. The scourges took down the last dreadnought, but got charged by Belial in return. He only managed to kill 1 thanks to Feel no Pain, and because they were fearless they stayed around. in my next turn (when i now had furious charge and rage) I charged him with a squad of warriors. 30 S4 attacks later Belial went down under a hail of blows, failing four saves, and I'd tabled my opponent.

So what did i learn?

First off, it's safe to say that the glass hammer definitely works as a hammer when you coordinate things. the archon's court and a warrior raider caused serious damage when backed up by some missiles and supporting fire from raiders.

The medusae proved themselves invaluable, taking down more than a whole tactical squad's worth of marines on their own in just two turns - the sslyth backing them up really make the squad difficult to take down too.

Night shields are great against weapons that don't ignore cover. I couldn't believe just how many shots the archon's raider absorbed in my second turn.

The Succubus just loves killing stuff. She made such light work of a combat squad of marines on her own that i didn't get the opportunity to see what the grotesques could do. Furious charge made this really work well, and in some ways i was glad that she didn't arrive until turn three.

The Helm of Spite is, erm, hilarious. In terms of wargear I was mainly looking forward to seeing the armour of misery at work, but the helm was great, meaning that even rolling two dice to cast has a decent chance to worry psykers. Adamantium will would just be a bonus really.

The Talos/Cronos combination is great, but you still need to be careful with them. Can't think of too many models that have both fleshbane and AP3, but it was deadly here, particularly since he was able to pick on the Cronos first to rid the Talos of their boosted FNP.

Reserve manipulation isn't key at this points level. I had 6 units in reserve at the start of the game, and though I went first, i rolled below average for them arriving - it was still enough to bring good firepower to bear. Ironically i think re-rolling for your reserves is more important at lower points levels, since they will make up a greater percentage of your firepower.

Next game I'm going to use a few different units to see how they perform, I'd like to use ravagers, razorwings and Incubi at least, though I'm going to keep the warrior units in there.